14951495–1939 · Kazimierz, Kraków

Jewish Kazimierz

The Old Synagogue at the end of Szeroka Street in Kazimierz, Kraków, a brick building with a crenellated parapet — Photo: Igor123121. CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Casimir the Great founded Kazimierz in 1335 as a separate royal town beside Kraków, and in 1495 the city's Jews were moved there. It became one of Europe's leading Jewish centres, home to the scholar Rabbi Moses Isserles, whose Remuh Synagogue still holds services. On the eve of the Second World War about a quarter of Kraków's people were Jewish.

Jewish Heritage
Religious & Pilgrimage
Social History
Krakow & Auschwitz, Poland

Sites

Site 1: Old SynagoguePoland's oldest surviving synagogue, now a museum of Jewish history.Map ↗
Site 2: Remuh Synagogue and cemeteryWorking 16th-century synagogue and the old cemetery with Isserles' grave.Map ↗